Letter To Hungary
Michael Kaulkin
About this work: Since even before living in Budapest in the early 1990's, I have loved Hungarian music for its enigmatic melodies and infectious rhythms. With Letter to Hungary I've taken the opportunity to explore what can be achieved by mixing these elements with my own style and sensibilities. This is a playful piece, in which Hungarian rhythms and instrumental styles appear unexpectedly and then recede into the background. Although most of the material is original, my hope is that the Hungarian listener will be convinced he or she has heard these tunes before.
The emotional core of this 15-minute piece is the well-known folksong Madárka, madárka, in which a little bird is asked to deliver a letter home to the singer's beloved Hungary. To me, this suggests someone in exile, living outside Hungary against his/her will, and so it's a song about homesickness. Fragments of the tune are woven into the texture of the plaintive, chorale-like introduction, and it becomes the main focus of the slow middle section. The final minutes consist of a vigorous scherzo that eventually becomes a gentle backdrop for one last majestic statement of the madárka theme, culminating in a wild csárdás coda.
For audio excerpts, see my web site
Year composed: 2005
Duration: 00:15:00
Ensemble type: Orchestra:String Orchestra
Instrumentation: 22 Violin, 8 Viola, 6 Cello, 6 Double bass
Instrumentation notes: There some passages where the each violin section and the violas divide by 4. The celli divide up to 3. The instrumention listed here is recommended, but the piece can be done with fewer players. (The premiere had a much smaller orchestra than shown here.)